Fire And Smoke
by Speedy1236
Summary: For some reason, it seemed like it passed everyone's notice that it's a VOLCANIC island. Team Sonic's day of outdoor fun on Angel Island takes a turn for the worst.
1. Chapter 1

_Speedy's note: This is a Triple Threat story. You can think of it being set some undefined time after Heroes and the first Sonic Riders game, timeline-wise._

_Dr Namgge once said to me that the environments in my stories are the worst threats for the characters. Here's some more evidence.;-)_

* * *

**Fire and Smoke**

* * *

_**Chapter One**_

"Sonic, come _ooooon_!" Tails already sat in the Tornado's pilot seat, eager to be on his way.

"I'm ready, I'm coming, chill out!" Sonic didn't even bother with the stairs; he just jumped down from the upper level where the living quarters were down to the workshop.

Tails' impatience was actually pretty adorable, and this was nothing like a life or death situation that would actually _require_ them to hurry.

Then again, the situation _was_ a first of sorts and Tails had apparently appointed himself to the task of ensuring it wouldn't stay the last time. Knuckles had – sort of – invited them to stay a few days on his island for some Extreme Gear racing.

Yes, something extremely fascinating had happened, something Sonic had been about to let go and consider impossible. Their hot-tempered island guardian friend had taken a liking to a _sport_.

Sure, he claimed he'd been into the races for the Emeralds, and although he'd been suspiciously quick to agree when Sonic and Tails suggested having a fun race on his island, he'd said something about practice and important skills and how it had helped them stop Eggman in the past.

But Sonic wasn't stupid; he knew a lame excuse when he heard one. He just didn't necessarily need to call Knuckles out on it.

Tails obviously agreed with him; they'd shared a grin and a wink behind Knuckles' back and agreed to the "training".

Sonic bounded up onto the wings and smiled down at Tails in the cockpit. "See, I'm good to go."

"Was about time; I was getting ready to go without you." Tails' grin put immediate lie to his words.

"Aw, you wouldn't. What would you tell Knuckles?"

The fox's grin broadened. "That you were being annoying and I decided to dump you into the ocean on the way up."

Sonic laughed. "Yeah, he'd believe that."

"He'd _understand_ that!" Tails was laughing as well while he reached for the ignition to start the engine.

Next thing Sonic knew was there was a weird scratchy noise, a spark, the wail of an alarm siren and a bang and his reflexes had taken him off the wings, snatched Tails along and they were all the way across the hangar before his brain had caught up with his feet.

"What was that?!" He sat a dazed looking Tails onto his feet.

The fox blinked, reconciling his sudden change of location and the events of the last few seconds, but he had practice. He took a slow breath. "That, if I'm not mistaken, was the death cry of the ring energy buffering capacitor."

"Oh." Sonic stared. "Is that bad?"

"Let me have a look, okay. If that's the only thing that went boom, I have a spare and we're good."

Sonic stood uselessly behind Tails while he opened a thankfully not actually damaged-looking engine compartment. The blackened thing Tails pulled from in there after a moment was smaller than his hand. "Here's the culprit."

"It's tiny for having made such a boom," Sonic noticed.

"It's also shielded." Tails' blue eyes went from the device to Sonic. "You might have overreacted a bit. We'd have been fine."

The hedgehog folded his arms. "It went boom! I have good reflexes! Boom is usually bad!"

"Yes, I know." Tails smiled. "Thanks for grabbing me, after all it could've been something really bad."

Sonic smiled back, nodding towards the charred piece. "So, nothing else broken?"

Tails shook his head. "I'll need to install the spare and run a couple of tests, we don't want anything frying on us while we're in the air later, but I think it'll be okay." He frowned. "But we'll be late. I'll need a few hours."

"Don't worry about it. You do what you have to do; we want a safe ride, after all."

"Will you give Knuckles a call, tell him we're not gonna make it right away?"

"Sure." Sonic smiled, although he doubted he'd actually reach their friend, but he dutifully made his way over to the main computer terminal of Tails' and its video call screen.

Surprisingly, Knuckles did answer his communicator, and not even with the usual air of annoyance. On the screen, he looked kinda smug and amused, actually. "What's it, Sonic? I'm waiting. Got lost already?"

"I don't get lost," the hedgehog insisted.

"Could've fooled me." At least he seemed in a good mood today; Knuckles' eyes were twinkling with mirth. Mostly at Sonic's expense, but whatever works, the blue hedgehog figured.

"Uh-huh." He traded Knuckles the glare that was customary for this type of exchange, before finally getting to the point. "No, we didn't even make it off the ground. Something fried in the Tornado. There were sparks and alarms but no power."

"Oh. Tails okay?"

"Yeah, he's already trying to fix it. Apparently he knows what is broken and has a spare. He's more upset that we're going to be late." Sonic shot Knuckles a grin. "Oh, and thanks a lot for asking if _I'm_ alright, too."

Knuckles raised a mocking brow. "You look fine enough, and you run headlong into buildings for fun."

"Do not!"

"Do too." The echidna was grinning now, too. "So I take it you're not gonna make it today?"

"Tails thinks we still might, just later, afternoon or so. We might not have enough time left to build much, or actually race."

"Don't worry about it. We can do all that tomorrow or the day after." Knuckles shrugged, violet eyes flicking away from the screen to trail across the sky. "I think it's going to rain tonight anyway."

"Aw dang, really?" Sonic pouted. He hated getting wet, and unfortunately Knuckles was usually right when it came to that sort of prediction. Both Sonic and Tails as pilots and frequent travelers could make an educated guess, but Knuckles, who lived between the clouds, was never wrong.

But on the video image the echidna was still looking amused rather than bothered. "Relax. I don't think it's going to still be around tomorrow. Just a summer rain. You're not gonna melt."

Sonic grumbled. "Yeah, right." He sighed. "Anyway, I'll see if I can help Tails with anything. He seemed confident we'd still make it later today, but maybe he could use a hand."

"Try not to make it worse." Knuckles grinned.

"Shut up."

"It was you who called in the first place," the red echidna noticed.

"Yes, to inform you that we're going to be late. That's the polite thing to do." Sonic tried to feign annoyance.

Knuckles raised a brow at him. "Because it's so much like you to do the polite things?"

It could've been an insult, but Sonic found himself laughing anyway. "Well, it _was_ Tails' suggestion," he admitted.

"Thought so." Also Knuckles was laughing. "Tell him thanks for the thought, and good luck fixing his plane."

"I doubt he'll need luck."

The guardian shrugged. "I figured it's the polite thing to say."

Sonic laughed again. "Touché. Are you gonna be bored?"

Now Knuckles looked like Sonic had said something entirely ridiculous. "I don't get bored," he insisted. "Impatient hedgehogs get bored."

Sonic stuck out his tongue at him. "Yeah, right."

Knuckles grinned. "No, I'll just go up ahead, decide on the exact track and mark it somehow, see where we can put ramps and such."

"That's a good idea."

"I trust you'll find the spot?"

Sonic nodded. "Sure. You showed us last time we were up. Piece of cake."

"Good. Then see that you get your backsides up here before I'm done building everything myself."

"I'll see what I can do to help Tails then." The hedgehog grinned. "See you later."

Knuckles just nodded at him and ended the connection.

* * *

The sky above was near overcast with high, thin clouds, still far above the island. The first heralds of the rain front he'd mentioned to Sonic, still many hours away. Right now, the light was still rather bright and the day was warm even up here where the forests thinned out with altitude, exposing wide fields of flowers and the dark rocks that spoke of the relative proximity to Lava Reef further uphill.

Knuckles hopped off his hover board halfway down the slope they'd decided would make a good racetrack. It was steep, a wide valley surrounded by even steeper rock to the sides. The open fields of grass were interrupted by patches of the pine forests common at this altitude. Knuckles leaned his Gear against one of those pines and set off on foot across the alpine meadow, towards an outcrop of rock in the middle of it. It had a sharp cut-off towards the downhill side and a more gentle curve up towards the mountain, possibly they could make this a ramp to jump off.

The echidna stopped near the rock's base. Something was weird. An inexplicable sense of unease gnawed at him. He'd checked and re-checked the Master Emerald's field, but it was not a presence on the island, no intruder, no threat to the precious gem. He was alone, and later today Sonic and Tails would be over, and he'd actually looked forward to their visit, he'd been in a really good mood this morning when Sonic had called, but now he felt ill at ease and he didn't know what to blame it on.

He looked out over the field of flowers, bright and colourful even without direct sunlight. The wind whispered softly though the pines around, but aside of that, it was silent.

Not a bird was singing.

Knuckles looked around, straining his ears. That wasn't good. Where were the birds, or the bumble bees going from flower to flower, or –

A growl rattled the rocks under his feet.

There was a deep, low rumble in the ground, and then an explosive bang like a thunderclap that split the ground _before_ it split the air. A flame shot out of the flank of the mountain above his position, bright as sunlight and sky high. Just a heartbeat later, it was devoured by the black cloud that exploded from where also the flame had come from, and then the black cloud was rushing, rolling down the slope towards him.

For just a dumb, slow second, Knuckles stood and stared. Out of nowhere, an unbidden thought flashed through his head. Good chaos, what if _this_ was what had happened to the other echidnas? What if he'd never found a trace of whoever had raised him because they'd been buried in ash and smoke and molten rock?

Survival instinct put a stop to this useless train of thought. There was nowhere to run. Maybe Sonic would be fast enough, but Knuckles wasn't faster than sound, or faster than plumes of hot gas and whatnot.

He reached for the Master Emerald's field in a panicked rush, drew in what power from it he could without direct touch to its surface, far away on the altar, hopefully safe and secure. The energy wound around him like a cape, a sizzling, unsettled coat of chaos.

He dived for cover behind a larger rock, buried into the earth at its feet as good and fast as he could in the moment that was left, until the fires of hell fell in all around him and the world burst into flames.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two**_

"Are we there yet?" Sonic whined playfully as he turned back towards Tails from his spot on the wings.

The fox laughed. "Grow _up_, Sonic."

"No." Sonic laughed, too. "That seems boring. Also, you should know I never do as I'm told."

Tails grinned. "So, will reverse psychology work? If I told you to _not_ grow up, would you?"

Sonic pretended to give this some thought. "Don't think so," he announced then. "Because now I know what you're planning."

"Oh no, my cunning plan was foiled once more!" Tails was laughing again.

"Yeah, you shouldn't take your cues from Eggman. Announcing your _cunning plans_ out loud isn't exactly a good idea." Sonic winked at his adopted brother through another laugh before turning back to gaze at the horizon ahead. It was indeed cloudy, but it didn't look rainy yet here. "I see the island!"

It was appearing at the horizon right now, still well above their current level of flight, hidden from a cursory look by a cluster of clouds that wrapped around it.

"Yeah, me too." Tails gently tipped the Tornado's nose up and an increase in throttle rumbled softly under Sonic's feet as the biplane began to climb higher to reach the Floating Island. Tails preferred to fly the majority of the way at lower level where the air was thicker and less cold.

Now the Tornado's powerful engine let them gather altitude quickly. Even in summer, the cool air brushing through his fur and spines sent shivers down Sonic's arms and he tucked his hands under his armpits for warmth.

"I keep telling you to sit in the _seat_, you know. This plane has heating and everything," Tails remarked from behind him. "But it has heating for the spaces meant for passengers."

Sonic threw another look back at his friend. "Shut up."

Tails grinned. "I know you like the wings best; I just say there are more sane alternatives."

"To riding a plane on its wings? You don't say." Sonic laughed.

Tails was apparently about to say something anyway, but distracted from it when the Tornado's wings caught the turbulence of the boundary to Angel Island's thicker, warmer atmosphere.

Sonic took a deep breath of clear and much less thin air while Tails adjusted the pitch and throttle. After a moment, the biplane settled back into a stable course towards the Floating Island in front of them. A thick swath of clouds wove around the base, and the shape of a nearly black cloud rose from behind the island's central mountains.

No, not a cloud. Smoke. "Is that fire?! Tails, there's a fire!" Sonic pointed.

Tails pulled the plane into a sharp right turn, pushing its nose down too so he could get a better look past the double wings. "Sonic, that's almost where we wanted to build our track! Where's Knuckles?!"

_Chaos, where is Knuckles? Hopefully doing the sane thing and keeping a safe distance? _"Too far to see anything yet!" Sonic narrowed his eyes, squinting through the wind on his face. It wasn't much of a bother; the Tornado wasn't near as fast as he was when running at top speed.

He wished he'd be down on the ground, wished there already was ground below to run on. To hurry and find their friend down there.

He'd said he'd be there by morning, marking the track…It was quite a bit into the afternoon now.

The smoke was a thick, dark grey column, more like the factory chimneys at Eggman's strongholds than the forest fires Sonic had seen. Too much in one space. But that was good, wasn't it? "It doesn't look like it spread very far, Tails!"

Tails didn't say anything in return, eyes narrowed and alternating between the shape of the Floating Island closing in and his instruments on the dash. "I'll have to bring us around from the other side; we can't fly through the smoke!"

Sonic nodded, not taking his eyes off the island's slopes. Steep and carved with ravines. Lots of fun to run and race down on Gears. Not very good to land a plane.

They normally landed much further down the island, where it was less steep. The burning spot uphill at least didn't have the densest forest; they'd been looking for more or less clear tracks for their boards. The jungles ended much further down the mountain. Firs and pines grew up there, spaced farther apart the higher you got, almost to where Ice Cap began, here and there even to the edges of Lava Reef's large crater.

As Tails circled the island still from a safe enough distance, Sonic finally got a proper look at the area the smoke came from. And it wasn't a forest fire at all. A few of the patches of pine forest had apparently caught flame, but they were not the source of all this smoke.

The source was further up the mountain, where the black slope nestled up against the outskirts of Ice Cap's glaciers. It looked like an explosion had torn a hole into the mountain's flank, and that hole was now hiccuping out the black smoke. At the edge of the hole, Sonic could catch a glimpse through the smoke and found a deep red glow shining back at him.

Liquid fire from the island's core.

"It's not a fire; it's an eruption!" Also Tails had figured it out; he was gesturing down to it even as he guided the biplane in a wide sweep around it.

"Yeah, I see it!" Sonic followed the slope down from the new crater. A track of fiery embers was creeping from the hole, like blood slowly oozing from a wound. It didn't look like it was going anywhere fast or far, though.

Further down, the thin mountain forest had been covered in dark grey dust. Ash, probably more like it.

Sonic had seen volcanoes up close before. He wasn't scared of a fiery mountain. He usually trusted in his running speed. It was just that he'd never really thought to connect "Angel Island" and "volcanic eruption" before, even though there was that giant main crater and its molten core up there and he'd nearly found his end in a lava flow once or twice that first time he and Tails had been to the Floating Island.

It seemed half a lifetime ago.

Without knowing it, Tails seemed to think along the same lines. "I never thought it could erupt," he said. Sonic threw a brief look over his shoulder to find his brother's brow wrinkle in confusion. "I mean, it's so small! It's cut off from the planet's mantle, where volancoes get their magma from. It's still hot because it takes a long time to cool down, but I didn't think it had the energy for a large eruption!"

Sonic chanced another look at the crater spewing smoke and ash down to the left of them by now. "It's not a large eruption. It's a pretty small crater, compared to what you can find at Flame Core or so."

Tails was nodding thoughtfully. His 'trying to make sense of science' face. "Maybe hot gas gathered in there and burst through the rock from the pressure."

"There's not a lot of lava." Sonic contemplated the mountain. "Think we're safe from surprise explosions? If it was pressure, it has an outlet now."

Tails shrugged, looking anxious and helpless. "I don't know; I'm not a volcanologist! But we have to go down! Knuckles could be down there!"

Sonic nodded grimly. Knuckles was certainly down there. It was a small island, there wasn't much space to run away when a mountain decided to blow up, and they'd planned on meeting up there somewhere. Knuckles would be there, and if he was, he could be hurt. Or worse. Sonic bit his lip. They were not going to consider _that_ until they had to. "We need to find a place to land," he said instead.

Tails nodded back at him. Sonic was sure he'd seen the look on his face; they knew each other too long and too well to hide much from one another. Neither needed to say anything; it was like the unspoken words hung loud and heavy between them as it was.

* * *

They found a landing spot for their biplane still a good distance from the eruption area. It seemed safer to keep a distance than risk getting the plane damaged. If they needed to get out of here, it was their only ride, short of jumping over the island's edge, and that was too far for Tails to fly by himself. They didn't know what the volcano would do, and there was a possibility that Knuckles was hurt, or one of them would get hurt looking around, and maybe rings wouldn't cut it. The Tornado was their emergency evacuation ride in case everything went downhill completely.

Tails had opened up the cargo hold in the biplane's tail and was throwing out its contents. Sonic picked up the pieces and methodically placed aside anything that could be of use.

Their hoverboards – could probably be used to search areas you couldn't walk on, which was possible with a fire and all. But they'd also probably suck in the dust and ash, they were sensitive to overheating their engines even when sucking in just sand, and if they needed them Sonic could retrieve them quickly later.

Shovels – maybe. They'd leave those here for now.

A collection of other tools went to join the shovels.

Rope. Rope could be good. Sonic dropped it with the first aid kit and the flashlights already placed to the side.

Their picknick bag. Lemonade and juice – grape flavour, a surprise for Knuckles. Chocolate bars and cookies. They could use that later. They'd probably need food and drinks.

Finally Tails produced two rucksacks, and the two went over their collection of items and devided up the load.

They'd been on several search and rescue parties before, both of them. It wasn't that they really went looking for trouble, but they got around a lot, Sonic even more than Tails, and they weren't the types to turn their backs if help was needed somewhere. They'd helped in finding avalanche victims in skiing zones, had helped finding lost children in forests and swamps, helped locate lost travellers in the desert, and Sonic had looked for survivors in a bush fire area and had participated in a cave search after an accident trapped a group in there. They knew how to organise a search.

Knew what was important. Like, keep a clear head. Search methodically. Mind your own safety first, because if you get hurt or trapped, you mean more work for other helpers and you won't be able to help anyone else. Don't run around randomly, even if you're as fast as Sonic. You could run right past someone and miss them in a disaster area, between smoke and possibly unstable ground and the landscape that didn't look like normally anymore, even if you knew it well before.

Sonic knew exactly what they needed to do. It shouldn't be so hard, but he didn't want to sort items into rucksacks right now. He wanted to run, to shout for Knuckles, find out if he was okay. And he knew from Tails' silence and from the way he stuck so closely to all the rules of thumb for emergencies they knew that he would also rather be running around in a near panic right now.

The blue hedgehog looked away from their equipment and scanned the surroundings. Part of him hoped they were indeed panicking and Knuckles would turn up suddenly, as he used to. Out of nowhere, guided to their location by some mysterious guardian-y sense or something, and across his island quicker than he should be because he knew shortcuts everywhere.

But he didn't appear silently from behind a bush to startle the quills off of Sonic. The island was quiet and strangely colourless, the sky wreathed in clouds and the smoke obscuring the higher parts of the mountains.

"I think we're good to go," Tails announced behind him.

Sonic nodded at him, forcing a smile on his face for his young friend's sake. "Let's go."

* * *

He could smell it well before he saw it. Sulphur and smoke that scorched their way up his nostrils.

Naturally, Sonic was the first to cross the last hilltop in their way, and what he saw brought an abrupt brake to his run.

Down below, the next valley led up and down the side of the mountain. It had been a rocky terrain before, with a few trees here and there in between, easily far enough to safely speed past on a board in any case.

What they'd designated as their race track for today looked more like some post-apocalyptic wasteland now. Most of the taller trees had been felled by – something. Explosion, blast, whatever. Something powerful. A few of them lay crumbled in a heap, several hundred meters from where Sonic remembered them standing. The remains were still burning, a slow, lazy fire that added a trail of light grey smoke to the heavy air. Isolated, it would look like a giant's take on a bonfire.

But it wasn't isolated. All across the slope, between this hill and the next, trees were brightly aflame, or already reduced to pitch black skeletons. The entire ground, Sonic remembered it as light green moss and alpine flower fields, was covered in dark grey ash. The ash was still falling, carried along by a hot wind from uphill that stirred up the dust in frequent gusts, like a winter storm would blow up the snow. The fire threw long, flickering shadows and an eerie red glow across the field.

Sonic coughed. Even at this distance, the smoke stung in his throat.

At the top of the steep slope sat the fresh crater. From here, you could hear it rumble and growl, like an angry beast. It was still too far to see the lava, though, but whatever explosive force had torn this hole into the mountainside had been powerful enough to floor the trees and to throw ash and small rocks several kilometers downhill.

If Knuckles had really been here when this happened -

"Oh my god…" Slightly breathless, if from the running or the view Sonic didn't know, Tails stopped at his side.

The blue hedgehog just nodded, allowing Tails a moment to get his bearings, too. He shrugged off his rucksack and fumbled for the first aid pack he carried. After a moment he found what he was looking for and pulled out two large folds of brightly white cloth. They were probably intended to make a sling from or something, but they could repurpose them as masks.

"Here," he nudged the stunned looking fox. "We don't want to breathe in all this."

Tails blinked, then shook himself and focused on Sonic. "Yeah, right."

They helped each other securely tie the cloth over nose and mouth. Sonic settled the knot behind Tails' head and inadvertently grinned as Tails turned around to look at him. "You look like a bandit out to rob a stage coach." His voice came out slightly muffled through the triangle of double folded fabric.

He was rewarded with a quick chuckle. "You too! But it's the wrong colour. Would have to be black to look badass."

Sonic shrugged. "The way I see it, it'll turn black on its own soon enough."

Tails nodded, light moment forgotten already. The blue eyes swept slowly across the fire and destruction before them. "Sonic, if he's here, how are we gonna find him?! What if he's –"

"We'll find him, and it'll be okay." Sonic put a hand on either of Tails' shoulders, forcing him to look at him, and not the smoke and death. "We can do this."

Tails nodded slowly, ears still tipped back, but he took a deep breath and gave another, firmer nod. "Okay." His eyes moved over Sonic's shoulder, taking another look at this barren wasteland down there. "But where are we gonna start looking? He could be anywhere!"

Not letting go of his little brother's shoulders yet, Sonic too turned to survey the mountain again. If they were right and Knuckles had been over there when the volcano blew, and if he'd had time to run, he'd have gone downhill. It was the only clear path you could run quickly on. The edges of the steep valley offered some shelter between rocks and in cervices, they would have to check there, too.

The chances to survive the blast were probably better the further down he'd been, so maybe they should start down and make their way up? That would be the safer searching area, too, for them as well.

But what if he'd been up close to the eruption? What if they wasted their time looking further down and didn't find him in time? Or if the slow flow of lava creeping out the crater would cover the ground uphill they had to search? It was much more dangerous higher up, but it had been more dangerous for Knuckles, too.

Sonic bit his lip behind the cloth, but turned back to Tails. "I vote for starting as high up as we can go. We have about four hours til sunset. The lava is going to cover more ground with time, and it's probably best we search the most dangerous part while we still have lots of light."

The fox nodded. "Makes sense." He drew another deep breath and pulled free of Sonic's hold. The large blue eyes looked frightened still, but decisive, too. Tails was a kid, but this wasn't his first brush with danger by far. He'd be okay. "Hurry. We're wasting time."

Sonic nodded back, and together they made up the mountain.

Towards the fire and smoke.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three**_

Slowly, carefully, Sonic made his way around the young crater. Even through the protective cloth, the air was hard to breathe, hot and thick. The ground was an unstable mixture of patches that were half molten and glowing a dim red heat and areas that were covered in a thick layer of dust and something that was almost like sand, and like in sand dunes it shifted under his weight, sliding here and breaking off there, and he had to be careful to not bring down half the mountain if he didn't watch his step.

"Ouch!"

Sonic whirled around at Tails's yelp, the quick motion upset his balance on the slippery dust and he ended up sliding down, down, spinning around himself once, twice before getting the chance to jump clear and land more safely atop a black rock that looked out of the dust. Old ground. Stable old ground.

"Tails!" Hurriedly he looked around to locate his friend, and finally spotted him perched atop a similar space he was on right now. The orange fox was balancing on one foot while rubbing the other. "You alright?! Tails?!"

"'m okay," Tails shouted back. "I thought I burned my foot! But I think it's fine!" He looked over at Sonic, shock and surprise and something like frightened awe in his eyes. "The ground is so hot it melted the profile right off my soles!"

Sonic took a second to check on his own shoes, but they were made from heat-resistant rubber to withstand a supersonic run - and a quick, hard brake at that speed. They bore a few black scorch marks, but he wasn't even sure if these were new or not. "I think I'm okay to go! Maybe you should fly?"

Tails had already jumped off his rock and was hovering a good meter off the ground with the whir of spinning tails. "I figured!"

Sonic gave him a thumbs-up and continued his careful path across the lava and ash field.

* * *

Half an hour later, they were far enough down the hill to give Tails cool enough ground to stand on again, too. They'd found no trace of anyone or anything yet, and no island guardian had appeared magically before them to call them reckless idiots and tell them off for messing around in a dangerous area.

Sonic was drenched in sweat, droplets of it falling down the tips of his spines, and depending on where they fell to the ground, they'd evaporate on the spot with a sharp hiss.

Tails didn't look much better off, fur plastered to his body and by now stained a muddy grey with dust.

They were picking their way across the field in a more or less straight line, moving further away from the crater with their search pattern. Tails was a couple meters lower than Sonic, still well within shouting distance. Slightly below the fox's path the first remains of what had once been mountain conifers of some sort still supported a notably large fire that illuminated the space around like a giant torchlight.

Sonic stopped for a second to look around. He'd been worried the fire would spread over a larger area of the island, and they had no way to contain it, but the sparse vegetation up here wasn't close enough to support an actual blaze, and the ash all over, hot though it still was, had probably also smothered some of the flames before they could go anywhere.

The sky above was a dark grey, but Sonic wasn't sure anymore if it was the clouds they'd seen on their flight closing in, or if it was the smoke, or the ash still heavy in the air. Sometimes it fell from the sky like snow flakes, but hot to the touch and sometimes a flake of it was still bright orange with residual heat.

Noting that Tails had continued a good bit ahead without him, Sonic swept a last searching look around before taking a few hurried steps to catch with his friend.

It was a mistake.

The second or third of his short leaps through rock and dust turned into a slide upon landing, and before Sonic knew what was happening the ground had disappeared under him, taking his feet with it. He span around to regain his balance, threw out his arms to grab something or steady himself, but even supersonic reflexes don't do much when there's nothing to stand and run on.

Sliding, slipping, struggling to find a hold somewhere, Sonic tumbled down the slope. He was going right towards the burning trees! Frantically he tried to find somewhere to put his feet, somewhere to jump from, but he was still slipping, falling, tumbling out of control.

"Sonic! Sonic, hold on!" He located Tails only as a shadow in the cloud of ash that he'd stirred up, somewhere above him, a whir of tails in the middle of the wind and heat.

He reached out a hand towards him, struggling for purchase on the treacherous slope, and somewhere between them Sonic managed to jump and Tails caught his wrist.

"I can't see a thing, Sonic!" Tails, too, was caught in the thick dust, the spinning tails only making it worse.

"Up! Go up," Sonic shouted. He wasn't sure which way up was, but he hoped Tails did.

Near blind and coughing, they finally emerged from the dust devil and dropped down somewhat to the side, taking shelter with one of the old rocks.

Sonic brushed ash and dust off a gasping Tails. "Hey, you okay?! Tails!"

The little fox looked up at him, eyes bloodshot from the smoke and flickering with the aftershock of their near fall and something else, something desperate and afraid. "No! Nothing's okay! You almost slipped into the fire!"

"You caught me, it's okay, you were awesome!"

Tails was shaking his head at him, ears curved all the way back. "We aren't going to find him out here!"

Now it was Sonic's turn to vehemently shake his head. He wasn't going to let them consider that. Never. "We'll find him," he said, hoping he sounded convincing. He was ceasing to feel convinced himself.

For just a second Tails looked angry. "What if we don't?! Sonic, what if we can't find him?! Or what if he's – what if it's too late to find him?!"

"Hey, we're not going to give up now because I took a little tumble!"

"I didn't say we should give up!" Tails frowned, breathing hard, but that short, rare spark of anger had burned out already, and he continued much softer. "Sonic, I'm scared."

Sonic sighed, pulling his brother into a short, firm hug. "I know. But we survived worse. Knuckles survived worse, too. We're gonna be okay. You have to believe that."

Tails nodded against his shoulder before pulling away. He threw a wary, but decisive look back the way they'd come, where the dust was just beginning to settle again. "We'll have to look there again. We probably missed a part of it with all this dust flying everywhere. We can't risk overlooking anything."

"We can't." Sonic studied the slope and then his friend. "It's probably enough if one of us goes. Cover me?"

The dusty cloth across Tails's muzzle stretched with a brief smile. "Always, you know that."

Sonic patted at his shoulder as he walked past him again. "We're gonna make it," he said.

He was starting to lose track if he was trying to convince Tails or himself.

* * *

"Knuckles! Knuuuuuuckles!" A bit further down the hillside, Tails was shouting.

"Knuckles! Can you hear us?! Knux!"

They were going to get hoarse before nightfall if they kept this up and there was no trace of their missing friend.

Sonic stopped his slow, careful way through the dust and ash to take a thorough look around. It was slow progress like this, but you had to stop and look around if searching for someone who might be buried somewhere or injured and lying behind the next best bump of the slope. If you hurried, you risked going right past the victim. Sonic knew that. Tails knew that. It was common sense.

That didn't make it any easier. He wanted to run, to try and cover as much ground in a short time as only he could, but the ground was unstable, and his running and wind might stir up the dying embers and reignite a fire, or cause another landslide that could get him or Tails or even Knuckles trapped and make everything worse.

If he was out here.

He had to be out here.

Somewhere where they could still find him.

Part of Sonic tried to cling to the hope that Knuckles had been somewhere else but in what was now this ash-covered wasteland, but it was a fact that Knuckles had said he'd wait here for them.

That aside, he'd never needed that long to find them whenever they came to the island. He had this almost scary sixth sense thing about finding people on his island. And even if he'd been at the other side of it, Angel Island wasn't huge. He'd be here by now, to check out the fire and the volcano and their being here, and he'd probably be complaining about all the racket they were making.

"Oh god, Sonic! Sonic!"

The hedgehog jumped at his friend's scream. Tails sounded – Sonic wasn't sure, but it was something dreadful. Something terrifying. Something to freeze the blood in his veins.

Hopping and sliding over precarious ground, he hurried to where Tails was standing as if frozen suddenly in place. Sonic gulped and prepared himself for the worst.

"Tails!"

The fox startled at Sonic's shout of his name behind him, but he didn't move from his spot until Sonic stopped next to him. He just pointed a shaking finger to the ground before them.

Even covered in ash, the bright crimson stuck out in sharp contrast. Buried halfway in dust and rocks and bent in a weird angle at its middle, it was still quite obviously Knuckles' hover board. And the side of it that was facing them was oddly deformed, the metal surface molten into a strange shape.

Sonic shook himself loose and reminded himself to breathe. They'd been looking for a trace of their missing friend. This was one. _Work with it._

Tails next to him seemed to be shaking. Instinctively Sonic drew an arm around him, pulling him firmly against his side.

The motion seemed to drag Tails out of the shocked trance. "Sonic, look at his Gear. If he was here when it happened, if he was riding it or –" He swallowed, started over. "If what hit his board hit him, I don't – Sonic, it was so hot it _melted_!"

Sonic squeezed Tails' upper arm. "Yeah." _And it bent the strongly built board in the middle, too. No, don't go there. Don't. _"Tails. Tails, this is Knuckles. He's really hard to kill. If he was here, he's probably hurt. We have to hurry and find him quickly. This narrowed down our search area. But we have to keep it together." By now Sonic was sure he was trying to reassure himself as much as his little brother.

But it seemed to work, Tails gave a shaky nod and looked around, trying hard to avoid looking at the mangled Extreme Gear. "Out in a spiral from here then?"

Sonic nodded. "You got it. Keep your eyes open; he could be buried somewhere."

Tails swallowed, but pulled himself upright and followed Sonic's lead.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four**_

He couldn't breathe.

The world was still fire and smoke, and he couldn't breathe.

He was surrounded by it, covered in it, fire and smoke and heat and ash and darkness.

Everything hurt, everything burned, fire and smoke, and somewhere in this distance, somewhere behind the darkness and the heat rang an Emerald tune.

_Come here_.

It was like a call. Urgent and sharp, like the fire.

He couldn't breathe. He didn't think he could move. He didn't know to where.

But he needed to _go_.

He struggled to reach out for the green light, felt along its pull, and it wound around his soul like a blanket. Soft, cool, almost a promise.

_Come_. _Get out of there._

He latched onto that link, that chain, that lifeline, and from somewhere, the darkness lit up in that steady green that rang in his ears like bells.

He tried to draw a breath again, ended up coughing on dust and heat that burned all the way down into his lungs, clutched desperately to that green promise. That cool, safe glow.

When the dust settled, Knuckles found himself curled against the base of a rock, still halfway buried in thick, dark ash. He blinked. His vision was swimming with tears or whatever, a blurry, grey swirl spiraling around him that wanted to drag him back under.

But the Emerald shine was still bright, a guiding light out of here, away from fire and smoke, and he fought to get his feet under him somehow, steadying himself against the rock in his back. His back burned.

_Everything_ burned and the world was spinning in dark, swooshing circles, but he had to go _somewhere_. Try to reach that Emerald glow, or that weirdly familiar blue spark of chaos flickering somewhere much closer, and slowly, unsteadily, he stumbled towards it.

* * *

They'd moved so far apart now, at opposite positions on their spiral out path, that Tails was hard to see through the haze and the ash still raining down. Sonic had a feeling it was going to get dark soon, but he didn't want to waste the time and check.

He threw a look back to the center of their search pattern. If Knuckles had been where his board was, or somewhere close, how far could he have run? Sonic studied the hill above. The crater wasn't visible anymore, hidden somewhere behind that curtain of smoke and ash. Sonic guessed he himself would need several seconds by now to run up there, or down from it to where he was now.

The lava obviously was much much slower, and thankfully it didn't look like it would get much farther at all. The initial explosion was something else entirely. That would move at sonic speed, or at least close to it.

He couldn't have gotten far. "Knuckles!"

Sonic went back to surveying the area closer around his position, brushing his feet through the dust here and there in spots that looked odd to him, to make sure he wouldn't miss a buried body.

_Person_.

He really didn't want to think about finding a body right now.

He wiped at his eyes, stinging and watering with the smoke. He couldn't risk missing something important because his vision was blurry!

"Knuckles! Can you hear us?! Knuckles!"

The call for his friend ended in a rough fit of coughing. Even with the protection of the cloth, his throat was scratchy and dry.

They'd been here much too long already.

Sooner or later, they would have to call a break, at least to have a drink, maybe eat the chocolate bars for energy, and it wouldn't be much longer until they'd need the flashlights to search. The smoke was smothering what little daylight was left.

Sonic kicked at another could be shape on the ground, throwing up more dust and coming back empty again, kicked another time at it for good measure, harder than was warranted. Stopped. Forced a slow breath. It didn't help unleashing his frustration on the dust.

He looked back up, another long, slow searching look all around. His concentration wasn't at its best by far anymore, and the haze and wind and unsteady fire light were bound to play tricks on your perception. A few times, both him and Tails had thought they'd seen movement, but it had been just rocks in the flickering glow, or a whirl of dust thrown up by a gust of wind.

As he set back out along his path again he first dismissed the motion he caught from the corner of his eye at another such mirage, but a moment later he heard the coughs. A horrible, strangled sound.

Disregarding all precaution, he was running before he'd fully processed the decision. Jumped over a fallen, smoldering stem of a tree, landed in a wild slide and barely recovered his balance and sense of direction. He almost didn't manage to stop before crashing into the nightmarish apparition in black, grey and red before him.

"Chaos, _Knuckles_!"

The ashen ghost lifted his head, stared at Sonic for a moment from hazy, reddened eyes - and toppled bodily against him. For a moment something strange and green flashed around them, but they were going down before Sonic had a chance to think about it.

"Oof!" Unable to break the fall under the sudden weight, the blue hedgehog twisted into it instead, letting his spines and back take the brunt of the impact. A fresh cloud of dust swallowed them up immediately.

Knuckles landed sprawled on top of him, coughing and wheezing even worse now. Sonic wasn't even sure if it could actually count as breathing at all.

Hastily he struggled to get out from under the listless weight of his friend and find some purchase on the slippery ground. He ended up basically pulling Knuckles backwards out of the worst of the dust, slowly and as carefully as possible, trying not stir up more dust and hoping to keep from hurting him more than was unavoidable.

Out in as clear atmosphere as he could find within the next half a mile, he hurried to sit Knuckles up. The spines at the back of his head were black as soot, but the rest of him was too covered in ash to see where and how badly he was hurt, and nothing of that mattered if he choked here anyway.

Kneeling behind him so he could hold him up by the shoulders, the hedgehog spent a few anxious moments trying to coax Knuckles to breathe. Only when he was halfway sure he wasn't going to suffocate right here and now, he turned his head around and hollered for Tails.

In the short time it took the fox to make the way over, Sonic at least succeeded in finding a thready pulse under the cuff of the tattered cloth that was left of Knuckles' gloves.

"Sonic! _Knuckles_!" Tails, miraculously, had the presence of mind to drop down to the ground a few meters away so his tails didn't cause another whirl of dust nobody needed. "Is he –"

"Alive." Barely. They didn't have time for details. "Quick, we need a mask for him to breathe through. In my rucksack, but I can't reach like this."

Tails nodded sharply and unzipped Sonic's bag to drag out the heavy first aid kit. Within seconds he had folded another cloth into a triangle shape.

Knuckles stirred in Sonic's hold on him when Tails moved to tie it over his face, struggling away from it.

"Hey, easy, we're trying to help you!" Sonic gave his shoulders what he hoped qualified for a soothing squeeze. "You're breathing in way too much of this smoke!"

Knuckles' eyes fluttered open again, but Sonic wasn't sure if he understood what they were saying right now. Either way, he was holding still and Tails finished the make-shift mask.

"It's probably way too late for that," the fox mumbled, critically studying his work and the way Knuckles was still struggling to draw breath. "He most certainly has smoke poisoning already."

"But we don't need it getting any worse," Sonic insisted.

Tails nodded. "True." He looked between Knuckles and the first aid kit, then at Sonic in an unspoken 'what now'.

"Put it back for now. We can't really see a thing here, and I think the smoke is the worst."

Tails looked doubtful and worried and still fairly terrified underneath. "Can we even move him? What if –"

Sonic understood the concept of internal injuries and all the other terrible things that could potentially be wrong, but the truth was that they were really short on options here right now. "He was walking when I found him. Well, at least he was on his feet."

Tails stared. "He was _conscious_?"

"Close enough." He nudged the echidna. "Knux? You with us?"

Knuckles stirred, mumbling something into the fabric across his mouth that sounded suspiciously much like "Emerald".

Sonic watched him for a second, remembering that weird feeling when he'd first grabbed him. Green. Something about or around Knuckles had been green. "You know, maybe that's not a bad idea."

"What?" Tails was apparently unsuccessful trying to keep track with Sonic's train of thought. To be fair, also Sonic was failing to completely make sense of things in his head.

"His Emerald." Maybe that was what made no sense. A lot about Knuckles and his shiny rock never really made sense. But could it fix this? What _else_ could?

"That's halfway across the island!"

It was a distance even Sonic wasn't fond of travelling at the moment. "I know. Probably not our first stop." He coughed on that scratchy feeling at the back of his throat again. "Come on, we need to get out of here first."

Tails nodded, and between the two of them, they made one abortive attempt to put Knuckles on his feet before deciding to carry him. The echidna didn't protest, and that was frightening all over again.

Grimly Sonic tried to focus on finding the quickest way to a safer place instead. Somewhere with fresh air and water.

* * *

Even the shortest "way out of here" they could find took much longer than it should, but they didn't want to risk dropping their load, and Sonic was stumbling backwards for the biggest part of the way.

Knuckles' head was a heavy weight against Sonic's shoulder and collarbone, the tousled, scorched quills poking and stinging, but he was a hedgehog, he wasn't worried about getting poked.

He was worried because he was pretty sure Knuckles had passed out on them minutes ago. Nobody wanted to stop and check; it wouldn't do any good.

Holding him like this, Sonic's arms wound under the echidna's armpits and across his chest, and it meant he could feel every shallow, wheezing gasp for air. He hoped his grasp didn't add too much pressure that made it even worse.

Tails was silent unless required to give a direction, holding under Knuckles' knees and focussing hard on the way ahead Sonic couldn't see properly. Guiding them out of this mess. Just every now and then he'd steal a horrified, wide-eyed look down at their way too still friend.

Sonic had stopped trying to reassure any one of them that it'd be okay. He was nearing the end of his rope, too, and maybe they should save their breath for later.

* * *

The change when they passed over the crest of the next hill over was stunning. A cool, fresh evening breeze suddenly danced through his spines, sweeping them against the back of his head like a gentle caress.

Tails obviously felt it too, he looked startled and relieved as it blew into his face. "I think we're coming round the windward side!"

Sonic nodded. Angel Island was odd about its winds, their flow ever changing as they wrapped around the Floating Island. It could be almost a lull here and a gusty, capricious near storm in just the next zone, just slightly around the mountain.

There was a light pine forest here too with patches of thick, flowered shrubbery here and there in between. It was much less dark than just a minute ago. Here it looked like it was still a good while until sunset. Sonic turned his head to get a look over his shoulder. The sky was still an ominous grey, but over there, the clouds looked heavy with rain, not with smoke.

Turning back, the way they'd come was hidden behind the dark shape of a hill and the fire was only still visible as an eerie orange halo around the hill top.

"Sonic, look!" For the first time in what had to be hours, Tails sounded... hopeful?

The blue hedgehog turned for another glance back and felt a smile spread on his face that pulled at the dusty cloth and tickled his nose with it.

Up a small incline, at the base of a rather large tree, two straight lines of rings span gracefully in the dim evening light, a bright spark of gold twinkling their way with every revolution.

Inviting. Friendly. Sonic thought it was the first inviting, friendly thing he'd seen all day.

The mysterious Gold Rings spawned as randomly on Angel Island as all over Mobius. Sometimes, you'd find a lot in one small area, and then you could run around for hours without much chance to locate more than one or two of the spinning rounds. As far as Sonic was concerned, the things had a mind of their own somehow, and here on the Floating Island it was as if they avoided the zones where you'd be most likely to need them. Maybe the rings hated volcanoes? They could be suspiciously rare at parts of Lava Reef, and they'd found none over the entire course of the afternoon. Right when they would have needed them.

But it didn't matter, because they were there now. Sonic turned back to Tails, and without having wasted a single word on it, they accelerated their steps up towards the shiny rings.

* * *

A series of bright, golden plings surged through him in a dizzying rush_. Pling, pling, plingplingpling_. The energy spiralled into his blood and bones with a familiar urgency before gently fading away.

Knuckles gasped and for the first time since - he couldn't even remember - the hasty attempt at a breath was followed by cool air all the way down into his lungs. The relief was instantaneous and so dizzying in itself that it almost stole his fragile hold on his senses right away from him again.

He focused on his newfound ability to breathe for a moment before trying to make sense of anything else.

There were still a number of aches and pains clamouring for attention all across his body. His back still felt like it was on fire, but he thought it was cooling.

_Everything_ was cooling. Something softly brushed through his fur.

He was in the water? Had to be. Floating on top of the waves. Weightless, dizzying still. Sonic was talking to someone, but it wasn't him. Was it?

Why was he in the water? Wait, why was _Sonic_ in the water? Something didn't make sense here.

Knuckles struggled to open his eyes, eyelids sticky with irritant. When had he closed them? He didn't remember.

His vision still swam and swirled when he managed to blink, and he found himself looking into a blurry, grey face with no mouth and nose. There were hands holding his legs and under his shoulders and - there was something over his mouth and nose! Had someone captured him?!

The echidna struggled with sudden panic.

"Sonic, put him down!" The voice sounded vaguely panicked, too. And familiar. Tails?

He was indeed being set down, quickly but gently, instead of being dropped to the floor as he'd almost expected. It didn't matter though, as soon as his back touched the ground, it was as if someone had put a hot iron to it. Knuckles barely bit down on a yell, choked on his own breath instead. He was vaguely aware of hands on his shoulders, of being sat back up.

Of shouting.

"Knuckles!"

Sonic? The guardian struggled to catch his breath and clear his eyes again. Adrenaline pulsed sharply in his veins, taking an edge off the pain, but not the confusion. "_What_-" The word came out as hardly a croak.

"Easy, just a second!" Tails for sure. At least he sounded like Tails. Through Knuckles' watering eyes, he still looked all sorts of grey and - something was _off_.

"Let me get rid of that, okay?" Sonic. Trying to sound calm when he really wasn't.

Knuckles blinked at the bluish grey blur, but didn't resist when Sonic reached for him. Whatever had been wrapped over his face disappeared.

The world was starting to slowly clear around him. Tails was holding out a bottle at him. That seemed a good idea! Knuckles reached for it with a shaking hand. The liquid was lukewarm, but like balm to his dry throat. It was sweet, too. The taste took several moments to register. Grape juice?

A lot of things really made no sense right now.

"Don't drink it all at once. I think you're not supposed to do that when you're dehydrated, and you most certainly are." Sonic sounded less than sure of what he was saying, but he was quicker than Knuckles and that wonderful bottle disappeared from his grasp.

"Hey!" Looking after the hedgehog in protest, Knuckles came up short again at the notion that Sonic too had some dark grey, triangular _thing_ wrapped around his face.

The hedgehog caught his look and pulled at it, bringing it down to his neck like a scarf. "Sorry. I suppose we look a bit on the spooky side?"

"What -" At least now he could speak a little more clearly, even if he realised after that one word he had no idea what he was even asking.

"There was an eruption," Tails said, reappearing in Knuckles' field of view. He really did look quite grey, with a scarf like Sonic, only the fur on his muzzle was still mostly white and orange, a weird line that ran along horizontally under his eyes. Grey and orange and white.

"Do you remember that? _Knuckles_!" Sonic sounded urgent enough that the red echidna made another attempt to focus his scattered attention.

He needed a few seconds to backtrack far enough in the conversation to recall the context for the question, then he nodded. Eruption."Yes." Fire and smoke. Nothing but fire and smoke. He shuddered at the memory. "I remember." And he remembered them not being here? "When did you -"

"We're not sure how long it's been since the eruption." Tails had a scary way of guessing his thought process without much input from Knuckles' side right now. "When we arrived like, three or four hours ago?" He paused, frowned, then shrugged and continued. "It was well underway when we came here, and we needed a long time to find you."

Sonic sat back on his heels, but one hand remained a steadying hold on Knuckles' shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

"Floaty." It was the first thing that came to mind, and as soon as he said it he realised it probably made no sense. But it was kind of true. Even down on steady ground, he felt... off of it.

Sonic sighed. "Okay, I'll ask again in a minute."

"Smoke poisoning means not enough oxygen in your system. It makes sense that you're dizzy." At least Tails was agreeing, even though he sounded like something terrible was happening.

It kind of already had. Something quite terrible.

Knuckles nodded at his friends again, mostly to avoid having to give a vocal answer while he strained to sort through the hazy mush of memory. Nothing made sense since this explosion. He remembered calling for the Great Emerald's power, a last resort, that panicked, uncontrolled rush of the energy singing through his veins.

_Oh Chaos_ \- What happened to the Emerald?! He hastily reached for the link in his mind and let out the breath he'd held for that terrified second when he found it clear and safe. Shaky with the aftershock of his rash use of it, somewhere behind the steady idle thrum, and now that he listened, he could feel the tingle of it burn underneath the pain of his injuries, deep in his chest and down his lower back. Working on healing it, without his doing, probably since it had happened.

Probably the reason he was even alive.

"Hey, _Knux_!" He blinked, found Sonic's hand waving in front of his eyes for his attention.

"Sorry," he mumbled. He knew both Sonic and Tails well enough to be aware of the worry lacing the tone and made an effort to focus his straying thoughts on his friends.

"It's alright. You breathed in a lot of smoke. Might've hit your head, too. We don't know." Sonic studied him critically. "We found a few rings for you a few minutes ago. I suppose they did help, you're breathing a lot better and all, but there's only so much a few rings can do after the fact."

Knuckles nodded. Rings and Emeralds were much more effective at preventing injuries from occuring than for undoing them later, and the fact that he was quite obviously still not in good shape, even with the Master Emerald's protection and healing energy as well as the rings Sonic spoke of made it quite clear that he'd been hurt badly. "Thanks," he mumbled, "for finding me. You probably saved my life."

"You're welcome." Sonic was still watching him closely. "You might have to thank your giant shiny rock for some of it," he noticed. "You were -" He faltered over the word. "- running on Emerald power when I found you? Kinda, I guess?"

Knuckles wasn't sure of that; he didn't have a clear enough recall of the situation. He thought he remembered Sonic, chaotic and blue in midst of the grey haze, but the memory was more than fuzzy.

But it was possible. The Master tried to not have its Guardian killed, after all.

"It's not that important now," Sonic was saying, recapturing Knuckles' thoughts before they could completely run away from him again. "While you do look slightly more alive than when we ran into you, that doesn't mean you look anything but awful. What's hurting the worst? Your back? You're so covered in ash that it's hard to tell. You gotta help us out here. Do we need to try and do something about it right here, or can we try and find a place with water to help clean it?"

Knuckles struggled to follow the hedgehog's words and succeeded only in keeping track of the last part of it. Now that he could breathe - the rings, perhaps - Sonic was right, his back was the worst. But cleaning it first sounded better than anything else. "It can wait," he said.

Sonic frowned at him for a moment, as if trying to figure out the truthfulness of his words, but then he nodded.

"Do you think you can walk now?" Also Tails was frowning at him. It seemed like the expression of the day. "If we give you a hand?"

At any other time, Knuckles would've been insulted, but the truth was that he hurt all over and his head was still in a lazy spin. A hand would probably be required. He nodded his agreement. "Just, you know..."

Sonic gave a sharp nod of his own that shook flakes of ash out of his spines. "Right. We'll try not to touch anything that met too closely with a volcano."

_Everything_ of him had made way too close an acquaintance with a volcano.

Knuckles couldn't help himself, something about the absurdity, the _Sonic-ness_ of the words tore a laugh from his throat - which immediately turned into a coughing fit to remind him that he probably wasn't breathing as well as he'd thought.

He needed a minute to recover from it, and then had to try and reassure his anxious looking friends that he wasn't dying right now. Tails looked like he outright didn't believe him, but Sonic, ever the impatient one, but the positive thinker too, was working on getting them moving again and it was enough to distract them all.

It needed an arm over the shoulder of each of the others to keep Knuckles on his feet, but now that he could get a proper look around, he knew where they were, and which way to go.


	5. Chapter 5

_Speedy's note: When I started writing this story, I didn't exactly plan out everything; a lot of things developed by logical consequence. This chapter is one of those. And once I'd written it, I wondered if the entire story requires an M rating or not. In the end, as you can see, I decided against it. But, warning in advance, some of this might not be for the faint of heart.  
Oh, and there's bad words, too. Sorry?  
_

* * *

_**Chapter Five**_

For still looking as if he'd stumbled right out of a horror movie, Knuckles had a remarkable sense of orientation, Sonic thought. Well, it was his island, he probably knew every tree and every stone up here, but given the fact Sonic still had no idea if the echidna could even look straight, it was a feat.

The place Knuckles was leading them turned out to be a small grove. A couple of tall and wide trees surrounded a small pond. A merry creek passed through it before continuing downhill through a small field of moss and grass. The water jumped over pebbles and a few old, fallen branches with a soft noise that seemed like music to Sonic's ears right now.

They sat Knuckles down next to the creek. A quick wash got the worst of the dust off Sonic and Tails' hands and faces at least. Knuckles washing off his face mostly removed the grey smears, but only to reveal the fact he was pale as the sky underneath all the grime.

Unpacking the rucksacks turned up the snacks they'd brought along and Sonic convinced both of his friends to at least have a few cookies and another drink first. If the evidence of earlier was anything to go by, cleaning and treating whatever injury was under the ash cover on Knuckles' back wasn't going to be lots of laughs and giggles.

Sonic set a still shaken and nervous looking Tails to the task of sorting through their supplies and checking the exact content of their first aid kit.

The hedgehog himself wolfed down a half molten chocolate bar to at least have something for energy to run on for a little longer, before he filled one of their now empty bottles with the cool water from the creek to pour over Knuckles' back.

It really was just water and he'd hardly touched him, but that didn't seem to matter. Knuckles curled around his middle, choking on a strangled gasp of agony.

Somehow the quietness of it was worse than a yell would've been. Sonic almost dropped the bottle. "Fuck, sorry, sorry..." For a second he debated stopping, then decided he needed to at least be able to see what they were dealing with.

By the time he'd unearthed a quite nasty looking burn that covered what had to amount to half of Knuckles' back, the quick, shallow pants were on a good way to qualify as hyperventilation, but not at all to supply anyone with enough oxygen.

_Now_ Sonic allowed his hand to drop the bottle. He reached for Knuckles' shoulders instead, carefully pulling him first back to what came close enough to a sitting position and then when no reaction came into what closely enough resembled a hug that he'd never ever thought of initiating if Knuckles didn't look like he couldn't breathe again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, come on, Red, stay with me. Deep breaths, come on." It wasn't near the first time today Sonic was stuck trying to somehow get the echidna to breathe properly, and it wasn't much better than watching him suffocate on smoke and ash. The blue hedgehog wondered if you just normally took things like the concept that your friends were breathing like normal healthy people for granted when you shouldn't. When it was so easy to lose. "Come on, with me, in and out, you can do it..."

Slowly, Knuckles managed to catch his breath, although he was still awfully tense in Sonic's hold, so much the quills shook faintly under the strain. Like a hedgehog's would have. On impulse Sonic brushed them down, then again when no protest came and Knuckles actually did relax a little bit.

Distantly Sonic realised his own hands were shaking, too. It was scary, seeing proud Knuckles breathless with pain, to know he'd caused most of it, to know how often he'd seen his red friend just brush off injuries and keep going and fight giant robots, to know this was worse, to think how very close they'd come today to not all walk away from it alive.

"I'm sorry to hurt you," he repeated. "I was being as careful as I could."

"... know," Knuckles mumbled into his shoulder. Far too quiet. Sonic longed to be snapped at in familiar, quick anger.

He pulled back a little to try and look at him. "How're you feeling?" It was a dumb question. He knew that.

"... think I'm gonna be sick."

In spite of that threat, Sonic tightened his hold again. "Nonono, we really don't need that." They _really_ didn't need that. Misery aside, they probably couldn't afford to have him lose any more fluids. "Take a few more deep breaths with me. Think of all the nice grape juice you had, would you want to waste that? We brought that stuff just for you! We braved a crowded marketplace to obtain this great juice!"

In some detached part of his mind, he was proud of coming up with somewhat light and silly dialogue while also his own stomach was coming to the conclusion that being sick seemed a reasonable course of action.

He wasn't even the only one impressed; he was rewarded for the quip with a disbelieving gasp of a chuckle. "Only you, hedgehog," Knuckles muttered.

"Yeah, I'm one of a kind, I know." He almost grinned through the horror of this day, but then he looked up and found Tails staring at him and Knuckles, wide-eyed. "Hey buddy. You alright?"

Tails shook his head with a brutal honesty Sonic had not seen since the fox had been much younger. Tails was still so awfully young now, but like all of them he'd learned to put on a façade. "I'll be fine," he said anyway. "I don't need to be fine _right now_." The blue eyes flicked out across the water, back to Sonic, then down to where he'd tidily spread out all their equipment. "What do _you_ need? What can I do?"

Sonic smiled at his little brother, putting Tails up on the mental list of 'deserves a good hug soon as this is over'. "What do we have for burns?"

Tails held up a tube. "Ointment. It's good, anti-septic, too. I tried it last time I, uh, welded."

Sonic raised a brow at him. "Do I want to know?"

"Nope." Tails was quick to shake his head now, easing up with the familiar lines of his particular exchange. Sonic supposed since he'd taken Tails under his wing when he'd been only four, and had suddenly been responsible for someone else than himself, they'd had this conversation like a million times. Tails called the concept 'plausible deniability'. Sonic preferred to just not be told some things.

He also preferred to not put an eight year old into situations like this one right now, but that was usually out of his control. "Okay, can you come here, keep an eye on Knux? I'm afraid I'll need to properly clean it before we can put that on, and it's not gonna be fun."

"You don't say," Knuckles mumbled, but he did make an obvious effort to sit upright and by himself.

A small bit of weight dropped off Sonic's chest at that first vaguely sarcastic reply he'd gotten since they'd come here. "Okay, and you, I want you to tell me how your Emerald is doing."

Knuckles blinked at him in obvious confusion, then a second later in sudden alarm. "You think something is wrong with it?"

"No, no, I think it's perfectly fine. You on the other hand - how about you try and do some guardian thing to try and convince it to help heal this mess you have for a back right now?"

Knuckles frowned. "It's doing that already."

"Oh? But not very fast?" Tails had come to take Sonic's place sitting with Knuckles.

"Fast is unsafe. Fast is... for emergency, for life and death." Knuckles shook his head. "Injuries can be healed quickly if need be, in a fight or something, but they don't heal _well_ quickly."

Sonic nodded, figuring they should take some comfort from the knowledge that the _Master Emerald_ of all things apparently didn't consider its guardian to be in mortal danger anymore. It would know, right?

He shook off the thought. He was really tired by now too, tired and frazzled, but they all needed to focus for a couple more minutes before everyone could take a break.

"Okay, anyway, I still want you to try and focus. Call up the shiny rock for some energy or whatever it is you have going on with it."

Something like comprehension finally lit on Knuckles' pale face. He nodded and closed his eyes.

Tails was still frowning, clearly not following Sonic's train of thought, but he didn't seem inclined to ask. To be fair, Sonic didn't know how Knuckles and his Emerald worked. Different than Sonic and Chaos Emeralds, for sure. But it seemed by far the more stable connection, the one with utmost permanence. Sonic had seen Knuckles lean on the giant shiny rock for strength before, and if nothing else, it would work as a distraction. He didn't think it needed quite the same focus as using one of the moody Chaos Emeralds, but who knew?

Sonic took another minute to place all his supplies in reach and to give Knuckles a chance to find whatever headspace one put himself in when trying to somehow talk to the Master Emerald. Sonic couldn't tell how it worked, or if it would work at all given the fact Knuckles obviously wasn't having the clearest of heads right now, but if the vague sensation was anything to go by, he had succeeded to call up _something_. Something distant, something faintly green, something _chaos_ was tingling ever so softly under Sonic's hand when he reached for Knuckles again.

Suddenly, Sonic wondered if some of that was even normal? Was Knuckles always such a flicker of greenish chaos? That discharge, that almost explosion when he'd first stumbled into him on that volcanic field was obviously not. Whatever it had been, Master Emerald life support or whatnot, that wasn't normal.

But this? This was faint and fickle and Sonic wasn't sure if he'd notice if he wasn't paying such close, anxious attention. What of it was because Knuckles was injured, how much would be a normal part of someone living so closely with chaos energy as its guardian? Knuckles had claimed at times that Sonic was chaos, would that mean the same was true in reverse, that Sonic should feel this chaotic essence in Knuckles' presence, too, but had never paid attention?

The hedgehog shook himself out of it. It didn't matter, not now, not here.

"You ready?"

"Get over with it, Sonic."

Steeling himself, Sonic went about soaking a still mostly clean piece of cloth and carefully started to dab at his friend's back.

In what were certainly quite high up on the list of the most awful and gruesome five minutes of Sonic's life, he finished removing dirt and ash and, ouch, some scorched fur from Knuckles' injured back. He tried to be as quick and efficient as possible, tried to not stop at every wince and every hitch of breath. The faster they got this done, the better for all of them. Sonic was sure he was going to have nightmares of this, he was equally sure Tails would have nightmares of this, and Knuckles? Well, Sonic hoped he wouldn't remember this whole thing in too much detail.

By now Tails had Knuckles in a firm hug not unlike Sonic had done a few minutes ago, face all but buried into Tails' shoulder and the fox's left hand smoothing down along the spines from the top of his head. Tails had lived with Sonic long enough to not hurt himself on hedgehog spikes, and echidna quills were not that different. In a token effort to distract him, Tails was mumbling quiet, nonsensical reassurance.

Knuckles utterly uncharacteristically didn't resist being held; he was still if not for winces and gasps, in spite of the green tingle still flickering erratically under Sonic's fingers, like a frantic pulse.

The blue hedgehog spent longer than was probably necessary just rinsing and hopefully cooling the burn, before using up half their supply of burn ointment on it. It seemed that the package size in their kit was not intended to deal with something just remotely this size.

At least they apparently carried a large enough bandage to cover it up. Sonic distantly thought burns needed to breathe and be able to cool off, but he saw little options to keep in clean otherwise, and he was sure none of them wanted to go through cleaning this again anytime soon. If Knuckles was right and his Master Emerald was doing some magic about it anyway, maybe it would be enough?

Sonic really hoped he wasn't screwing anything up here. His knowledge of first aid came mostly from a course taken with Tails years ago, and from dealing with the scrapes and such he brought along from his various adventures. Knuckles was the much better field medic, but... Yeah.

Maybe it would be easier if Sonic had gotten hurt? If roles were reversed, maybe nobody would have been hurt because Sonic could've been fast enough to run from it? Or wouldn't he? What if not? Given everything, as bad as this looked, Knuckles was in incredibly good shape for someone who'd been blown up by a flaming mountain. Sonic was fairly sure he'd used his giant Emerald for protection somehow. How much worse would it be without that?

Sonic shook himself and decided he really didn't want to know.

For a few minutes the hedgehog busied himself tending to smaller cuts and burns, but it didn't need quite as much focus and he suddenly realised that Tails was still talking quietly. Now that he listened, Sonic noticed the fox had apparently run out of comforting nonsense to say, but for some reason he'd been of the opinion that he should keep talking anyway, about whatever.

"Whatever" seemed to right now be a recital of the periodic table, complete with details from common and scientific name up to the elements' atomic weight and known isotopes. Sonic was quite sure Tails was trying to distract himself at least as much as Knuckles...

It was usually Sonic who would find a distraction if one was needed. He'd been awfully slacking in that department over the last couple of minutes. Way past time to up his game, then, but it wasn't Tails and his chemistry lecture he addressed first, although that definitely needed to be addressed pronto. But Knuckles really was terribly quiet and still right now and it worried Sonic slightly more than the fact that Tails seemed to seek comfort with lead's electron number and melting point.

He half-heartedly brushed down some of the thick dreadlock spines, again unable to brush off the black colour. "I'm afraid your quills are gonna look like a bad Shadow cosplay for until this grows out," he said, clinging to the last bit of humour he had left because also Sonic needed a distraction.

Funnily, this silly comment was what roused Knuckles, who probably didn't even know what a cosplay was. He pulled his head off Tails' shoulder and squinted back at Sonic. "Huh?" Even that one not-quite word sounded rough like sandpaper.

Knuckles' stirring in turn shook Tails out of his recital of chemistry numbers. "What?"

Sonic pointed sloppily at the back of the echidna's head, not willing to give either of his friends the chance to sink back into whatever dark space he'd pulled them from. "His spines. They're black, and it doesn't wash off. I think it'll have to grow out slowly."

Knuckles shrugged, warily, like he expected even that small motion to not be a good idea. "It'll grow back," he said anyway, like it didn't matter.

It really didn't. Not at all, but it was easier to ask what had scorched his spines pitch black than to wonder what it had been like when the same thing happened to soft skin and fur instead of hard spines.

But Sonic's tired, mad brain didn't want to stop going in that direction. "Were you running from it?"

It had been more thinking aloud than actually asking a genuine question, but Knuckles apparently took it as such. "I figured I wouldn't be fast enough to run. I tried to burrow away from it."

"With your feet and hands down." Tails for some reason seemed to appreciate working out the details. Maybe uncertainty scared the scientific mind more than facts. "That's why it hit your back. Your quills protected you some, but they don't cover your entire back."

"Something like that." The Emerald tingle was gone from where Sonic could feel it, and Knuckles seemed even groggier in its wake than before.

The hedgehog pushed some more refreshments on him, but then left him to sit around in peace and sip at a bottle of lemonade. Instead he dragged Tails towards the pond and used the excuse that they needed to finally get properly clean to check on his young friend, and to finally give Tails that hug. To be perfectly fair, Sonic really felt like _he_ needed a hug as well. The brothers just held each other for a few long moments, finally having that bit of time to allow the realisation that they were indeed all alive to fully sink in.

Eventually Sonic pulled away, holding Tails at arm length. "You okay, kiddo?" He'd not called him that in a long while.

The flash of surprise in the blue eyes told him Tails was well aware of that, but he nodded softly. "Yeah." The relief was obvious in the weight of just that one word. "You?"

"A-okay." Sonic smiled. It was stretching the truth a bit, and Tails knew that, but all in all, if his friends were okay, Sonic was okay, too. "Come on, let's see if Knuckles left some lemonade for us."

Tails shrugged. "If he wants it, I'll be happy to stick to water from the creek." Any other day, this statement would seem more likely in reverse, with Knuckles choosing the water.

As it turned out, the echidna had not finished off all the lemonade. He was still nursing that same bottle, although by now it was down to a third of its contents, and something about the sweet drink or the sitting around for a few quiet minutes had done him some good. The violet eyes were more alert than Sonic had seen in all the time since they'd found him, and in a way that was familiar, awfully relatable and just completely and utterly ridiculous, Knuckles was looking at _them_ with what was obviously concern. "You guys okay?"

For a moment there, Sonic almost laughed. Knuckles looked like he'd gone a few rounds with a dragon and lost, and he was asking about them? "Yeah, we're good." He plucked himself down next to the echidna in an exaggeratedly casual manner just to make a point. "It's just been a long day."

Tails settled down across of them with a quiet hum of agreement.

"Yeah, I suppose." The echidna turned the bottle in his hold, watching the yellow liquid swish around in it. "I'm sorry I didn't… have a better grip on myself."

_Chaos_… This was ridiculous, too. Knuckles wasn't usually the most proficient person in picking up on cues for things like the emotional impact the last few minutes, heck, _hours_ on Sonic and Tails, but did he have to choose today of all days to try and get better at reading them?

That aside… "Do you think we're jerks, Knux?"

Knuckles stared, clearly not quite following, but Sonic didn't wait for an answer anyway.

"And you clearly have a wrong perspective on things here. Dude, if some clumsy hedgehog is poking around a huge burn, you'd have all the rights to scream your lungs out or something. You're a shining example of "grip on yourself". If something like that were a subject we judge people on, we could totally be proud of you. But we're _not_ jerks, just to make that clear again."

Knuckles still didn't look super convinced.

Sonic sighed. "Okay, let's make a list of facts here, shall we. One: I've had burns, Tails has had burns, all much smaller than this, and they hurt like hell. Nobody here will think less of you. Two: You were hurt really bad when we found you. Evidence number one: those rings you had didn't do much if anything about that back of yours, which means they were probably busy healing something far worse. You breathed smoke and ash and whatever evil gases there were for hours. We also can't rule out head injuries, because we just have no way to reliably check. You're totally allowed to be off your game here. In fact, _I_ have only a few scrapes and a scratchy throat and _I_ feel off my game. Tails?"

"Yeah, me too. Totally off my game." The fox shrugged. "It's not like we're never in dangerous situations, but it's not the same, I think. You know, it was just an afternoon, just a few hours, but it seemed – I dunno."

"Hours?" Knuckles frowned. "I don't remember hours, I don't even… I think my sense of time is just totally –"

"Shot?", Sonic supplied. "To Meteor Herd and back?"

Knuckles snorted. "Wouldn't have been my choice of words, but I think it works well enough."

Sonic shrugged. "No harm in that. We can do without it for the rest of this mess of a day."

"Yeah, I suppose."

For another few minutes, they sat in a semi-circle, Sonic and Tails sharing the remaining bottle of lemonade between them. The small creek still gurgled happily on beside them and a cool wind was rustling in the bushes around and whispering down from the crowns of the large trees surrounding the grove.

It was Tails who finally waved a hand around vaguely. "It seems so… _surreal_. To think that just an hour ago… Just over a few hills… It's so peaceful here; you would never think there was all this fire and destruction."

Sonic was about to agree, because it really was so very weird, but apparently it had _just now_ occurred to the island's guardian that parts of his beautiful flying piece of ground had caught flame. The tousled dreadlocked head snapped up from where he'd been half lost in thought gazing at his drink. "I have to go see it!"

Only Sonic's jumping to his feet, hand pressing down on his shoulder kept Knuckles from getting up. "Absolutely not! Have you looked at yourself?!"

Even still white as a sheet and with scorched quills and fur, Knuckles was glaring his best. "So what? This is my island! I'm responsible for it! I need to check it out!"

Just a few minutes ago, Sonic had been relieved at Knuckles looking more like himself. But this? This was impossible. Unbelievable. Sonic glared right back. "What are you gonna do about it, huh?! Glare at it, like you glare at me?! There's a crater and it's spewing smoke and ash, mostly, by now! There's nothing you can do about it, and nobody is responsible for volcanic eruptions!"

"I'm the guardian! It's my –"

"I swear to Chaos, Knuckles, if you say anything about responsibility again tonight, I'm going to –"

"Stop! Both of you!" Tails was no longer sitting either, instead he stood in front of them, bushy tails thrashing agitatedly behind his back. "It's _enough_!"

"Right." Sonic sighed, really, really grateful for Tails yet again. He pulled in a slow, calming breath and focused on the red echidna. "Knuckles, we spent _hours_ trying to find you out there in this – this inferno! We were about to give up hopes of ever finding you alive, or finding you at all! For all we knew, you could've been buried under molten rocks or burning dust or whatnot!" From the corner of his eye, Sonic could watch Tails wince, and he silently promised himself to apologize to him later. "Knux, you almost died out there. Damnit, you were half dead when I found you, and for all we know you have only your shiny rock to thank for not being _completely_ dead! And I swear to you, over _my_ dead body if you must, you're not going back to get blown up again or molten or set on fire until you at least look like you can reasonably stand by yourself!"

Knuckles blinked, temper and ill-timed sense of responsibility stalled somewhere in the middle of Sonic's outburst, and now he was just sitting and staring at him, still awfully pale and the black and grey marks standing out in stark contrast to the few spots where you could still see his original colour of fur. "Oh," he said, sounding quiet again and hoarse from breathing way too much smoke. Now he looked lost all of a sudden, lost and hurt and tired. "I… sorry?"

Sonic blew out his breath in a sigh. It was impossible to be angry with someone who looked like death warmed over. "Look," he said, trying for a softer and calmer tone again. "I'm not mad at you. And if it calms your nerves, I was going to run and see how it's looking over there. We should keep an eye on it. To be safe. To make sure it's really calming down as it seemed and that there isn't any forest fire spreading or something. But if someone goes, it's someone who looks like they can stand without falling over. And that doesn't include you tonight. I'm sorry. No offense."

Knuckles apparently couldn't decide whether to be mad or reasonable or anything else and it just added to the lost look.

It was Tails who chimed in to rescue the awkward silence from lasting too long. "I don't think it's still likely, but should there be another explosion, it's probably sensible if Sonic goes, because he's the fastest."

That seemed to get through to the echidna. Sonic hoped Tails knew what a wizard he was sometimes. "Yeah, okay," Knuckles mumbled. He squinted up at Sonic. "Sorry."

The hedgehog finally pulled the restraining hand off his friend's shoulder. "S'okay. You earned a few get out of jail free cards for today." He threw a look back up the small path they'd come down. "I guess I should be going to take that look then, huh?"

"Be careful." Apparently Knuckles had forgiven him.

Sonic grinned. "You know me."

"Yeah, that's why I'm saying it." Finally, there was a smirk on Knuckles' face.

The blue hedgehog took a moment to affectionately ruffle Tails' bangs even while technically still speaking with Knuckles. "I won't be long. Be good, kids."

Tails was laughing at this address, and Knuckles' protest about it was swallowed up by the wind as Sonic accelerated up the trail.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six**_

Without having to carefully carry someone, Sonic covered the way they'd needed at least half an hour for in less than a minute. At the higher speed it was even more obvious that the way Knuckles had led them through the forest was indeed a footpath, however well hidden.

Instead of following the way he and Tails had come, Sonic turned slightly more uphill and scaled a rocky outcrop that sat overlooking the burning valley below. From its top, the entire expanse of the destruction stretched out before him, similar to that first look he and Tails had gotten of it when they'd arrived.

On first look, it didn't seem largely different from then. The sky was still an ominous dark grey. Thick, hazy swaths of air laden with smoke and ash were rising towards it, up to several hundred meters of height, where finally the winds flowing in would grasp them and tear them asunder.

On second look however, the bright fires they'd spotted all across the slope when they'd come had burned out for the most part, although a few remained as stubborn enclaves of flame on the dark, scorched slope.

From his lookout spot, the crater was half hidden behind the curtain of haze. A faint glow shone through it; Sonic wasn't sure whether to take it as dying embers or a silent threat of more trouble.

He made down the cliff again and jogged up the mountain, keeping the burned area to his right hand as he went. Up here the air had a distinct fiery tang, but it wasn't enough to bother him or pose a genuine concern.

When he reached the same altitude as the crater, he could finally see it more clearly. What had been a thick column of black smoke had thinned out now, and it no longer rushed up from the crater in explosive gasps. What smoke was still rising from the fiery hole billowed up softly, tiredly. "Someone's running out of juice," Sonic mumbled to himself.

Something hit his nose. Something… wet?

Surprised, Sonic looked up. Another big, heavy drop of rain hit him square between the eyes.

An incredulous smile spread over the hedgehog's face. "Well, Knuckles did say it was going to rain tonight," he said to the raindrops that were now falling all around him in ever increasing numbers. He stretched out his hands to catch them.

Sonic wasn't a fan of rains. He wasn't a fan of getting _wet_.

But this? This was magical.

The howls of hot winds and the distant crackle of fires were drowned out by the rush and platter of a million of raindrops. Within minutes, the ash and haze were gone, the air purified by the falling drops, the penetrating smell of smoke and sulphur gone to make room for the overpowering scent of rain. Downhill, the remaining forest fires surrendered to the force of the water. The crater disappeared behind a blanket of white mist.

Sonic stood with his head still tipped back, letting the drops hit his face and taking deep breaths of the clean, fresh air.

* * *

When Sonic returned to their improvised camp, Knuckles was curled up fast asleep on a dry, thick patch of moss in the shelter under a large tree. He looked peaceful there, and Sonic had no intention at all to wake him and give a report. Let him have a fit about it in the morning if he wanted to.

Tails sat near the pond, watching the raindrops paint circles on the water surface. Like Sonic, he seemed to rather enjoy the cool rain.

The hedgehog moved to sit next to him. "Knux okay?"

"Much as can be expected. Super tired, he was out like a light as soon as I convinced him it's a good idea to lie down, but he claims he's _fine_." Tails shook his head with a disbelieving snort. "One day, the three of us will need to have a serious conversation about the meaning of the word 'fine'."

"Hey, I know what it means," Sonic protested, because obviously that jab had been aimed his way, too.

"Uh-huh. I'll remind you."

The blue hedgehog humphed, and for a moment it was silent except for the plitterplatter of raindrops.

Then Tails spoke up quietly again. "How's it look?" From this close, Sonic could see the dark, tired shadows under his eyes, even in the dimming light of a rainy dusk.

"I think it's stopping. There's less smoke coming from the crater, and the rain put out the fires downhill." Sonic pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them. "I went up the side to almost the height of the crater. The lava didn't get very far, and now the rain is cooling it off."

Tails nodded, hands behind himself on the ground and leaning back. "It makes sense that it doesn't last very long. I really wouldn't understand where the energy for that would come from." He shrugged lightly, lifting his eyes off the water surface to look at Sonic. "But as I said, I'm not a volcanologist."

Sonic smiled. "You don't need to be. You made a good disaster rescuer today."

The little fox frowned. "Did I? _You_ made a great rescue _organizer_. Sonic, I don't even know if I'd have kept it together without you! You know, I like to make plans, plans are _my_ thing, not yours, and I knew what we had to do, theoretically, but it was so hard!"

Scooting closer, Sonic wrapped an arm around Tails' shoulders and pulled him into his side. "You want me to tell you a secret? I was terrified out there."

Tails shook his head. "I _know_. But you didn't let it stop you." Sitting this close, Sonic could see the blue of his eyes even under the now rapidly falling darkness. Just a few years ago, Tails would have stubbornly denied the idea that his big brother could be scared of anything. But he wasn't four anymore. At even just twice this age, Tails saw what Sonic managed to hide from everyone else.

"Neither did you. I needed you out there, you know that." The blue hedgehog gave Tails' shoulder a squeeze. "Everyone gets scared. It's quite normal to get scared when you're stumbling around an erupting volcano."

Tails chuckled suddenly. "If you put it that way, it seems sane to be scared. Scared probably keeps you alive."

"Yeah." Sonic looked back out over the water. Right now, that didn't make him feel even wary, and the rain was pleasantly cool on his skin. "Puts a few things into perspective," he mumbled.

"I guess," Tails agreed around a yawn.

"You want to have the first turn sleeping?" Sonic nodded vaguely in the direction of the dry spot under the tree where Knuckles was.

"I feel like I want to sleep a week, nonstop," Tails said. "But you're right, we need to be safe. I don't want to wake up and find the rain stopped and the wind turned and the forest is burning or something like that."

As usual, Tails had figured out exactly what Sonic had been thinking, too. "I'll wake you in a few hours?"

"Before you fall asleep sitting." The grin was audible in the fox's voice, remembering an incident from years ago.

Sonic shifted his hold to ruffle Tail' fur, trying to stop himself from laughing out loud. "Something like that. Go to sleep."

"You bet I will." Tails wound out of Sonic's grasp. "Happy _not_ sleeping."

Sonic grinned. "Sleep tight."

"Remember to wake me." Near silently, Tails made his way over to the wide base of the tree, safely under its branches.

Unlike a few times when they'd first known each other, Sonic _would_ wake Tails for his watch. The fox was no longer that small, and the truth was that Sonic too felt drop dead tired. Sleep sounded like a great idea, but so did not having any unpleasant surprises. They couldn't trust that crater yet. Better safe than sorry. Even Sonic had had enough excitement for one day.

The hedgehog moved to the edge of the dry space, to where just a few drops still hit his nose, went back to curl up around his legs, leaned his chin on his knees, and listened to the rain coming down all around him.

No more fire and smoke.

Just beautiful, lively drops of water.

* * *

Sonic woke to a still rather prominent scent of petrichor and to warm sunlight on his face. It had to be quite a few hours into the new day already.

When the hedgehog opened his eyes, the grove he'd only seen in the grey light of dusk yesterday was vibrantly colourful in the sunlight today. The world looked washed clean, bright and shiny, droplets of water sparkling on ground and leaves. The moss stretched out as a carpet of rich green, the foliage above his head gleamed bright lime as if it was glowing out of itself, and just across the clear pond some of the bushes actually wore yellow and red flowers between their leaves. A thick layer of haze lay over the water, glowing faintly with captured sunlight. Through the branches of the large tree, he could glimpse a sky in bright cyan between a lot of small, puffy white clouds.

Their rucksacks lay a few feet away, along with a few random items stewn across the ground. Tails was nowhere to be seen, but Sonic found Knuckles sitting cross-legged at the edge of the pond, not far from where he and Tails had been sitting last night. The guardian's eyes were closed, meditating or maybe just chilling a bit, the wind softly playing through his quills the only visible movement, and so far he didn't seem aware Sonic was awake.

The blue hedgehog took a moment to observe his friend while he didn't yet know about it. He was sure Knuckles would be mad and disturbed if you told him, but he was very easy to read most of the time, with those fiery emotions always close to the surface. Knuckles wore his heart on his sleeve in a way not even Sonic did. It was most obvious with his quick anger, because that might well be the first you'd see. It had been quite a while after he'd known him that Sonic had seen a contented Knuckles the first time, or a genuinely happy one, but when it did happen, it was as obvious as any other emotion. Guilty or sad or desperate were more easily covered by the familiar temper, but only if you didn't look closely enough, and after several years, Sonic thought himself a master of reading Knuckles, even when he put on a tough façade. He took fun out of exploiting it, to rile him up and draw him out, but he figured that perhaps he'd also know if something was genuinely wrong.

You probably had a right to be not okay after almost getting killed by a volcanic eruption.

Did Knuckles look not okay? Yesterday he'd looked utter terrible.

Sonic studied his friend. Some time this morning, he'd apparently taken the time to properly clean up, and his fur looked more red and a lot less grey, if not for the scorched quills, but those too at least looked slick and tidy again. The washing somehow made the cuts and bruises and the bandages Sonic had put on him yesterday stand out even more obviously, but Knuckles looked better anyway. The night of sleep had put at least a bit of colour back to his cheeks, and his posture looked relaxed, breath deep and calm and so so far away from the scariness of yesterday.

Also his face seemed relaxed, the tightness of stress and pain gone from around his eyes. Sonic supposed that was a start.

Knuckles' eyes snapped open immediately when Sonic sat up, sharp and alert. After a second, they lit up with the smile that appeared on his face. A smug, mocking smile, that was. "Oh, look, it's alive."

It needed all of Sonic's self control to not whoop in relief. He allowed himself a grin instead of the frown and complaint that would've been customary. "That should be my line," he said, which also wasn't what should go here in this exchange. "Oh, and by the way, good morning to you, too." That was closer to the gist of what was normal and familiar, and he almost managed the glare to go with it.

"Noon," Knuckles said, dryly.

Sonic grinned again. "Whatever. _Good noon_, then."

Silent humour still danced in the echidna's eyes. "That's not a phrase you say, not even on the surface."

"So, what do we say on the surface then, oh speaker of many languages, most of which are extinct?" Sonic laughed.

The guardian just ignored the tease. "'Good day'. 'Hello'. 'Hi'. 'Sorry that I'm sleeping during the daylight hours again like the lazy hedgehog I am'."

Sonic grinned. "Okay. Good day, hello, hi, sorry that I'm asleep during the daylight hours because I'm a lazy hedgehog."

Knuckles snorted. "Uh-huh. Almost convincing."

"Best I can do." Sonic shot him another grin while he stretched. "Where's Tails?"

The red echidna waved a hand vaguely downhill somewhere, and Sonic noticed he'd gotten rid of the sad remains of glove he'd still had yesterday. The pointed, conical knuckle spikes gleamed near dangerously in the sunlight. "He insisted on getting the Tornado. Apparently he found that field slightly downhill that's big enough to land and start on."

Sonic nodded while he climbed to his feet. "That seems a good idea." He gave Knuckles another hopefully somewhat stealthy once-over. "If you still want to get a look at it, that's probably the easiest way. You'll see more from above than from on the ground."

"Talking of looking at it, what happened to your looking at it, hedgehog?"

Sonic shrugged. "I went up to almost at the crater. The rain was putting out the fires. It looked safe, but Tails and I took turns at keeping a watch in case it started up again and a turn of wind would bring it over here."

Knuckles was frowning up at him. "That's what Tails said, too. What happened to your telling me about it?"

Ah, _now_ they were at the point where Knuckles would have a fit about it. Well, the calm before the storm had lasted long enough that everyone could get some rest.

Steadily meeting his eyes, Sonic shrugged again. "_You_ were asleep when I came back."

The echidna still frowned. "And you didn't think you could have woken me to tell me about my island's safety?"

He'd known this was going to happen, he'd been willing to cut Knuckles all sorts of slack because of recent events, but somehow it did nothing to keep the frustration at bay.

Angrily Sonic folded his arms. "You know, I just had the perfect idea what I'm going to get you for your next birthday. A mirror, so next time something like this happens, you can look into it and decide if you don't share my opinion that you look like crap." Knuckles spluttered, but Sonic didn't give him the time to speak up. "Damnit, and you say I'm a reckless idiot who doesn't know when to stop! You're lucky to be alive! You needed some rest more than any story telling! Know who was up half the night to make sure you're safe and your island's safe?! Tails and I!" He span around, to face that surreal, beautiful forest instead of Knuckles, because looking at the scorched marks on his quills and the bandages and all that reminded him too much of how _scared_ he'd been yesterday.

He forced himself to take a deep breath. He'd not meant to snap at him. He'd spent all of yesterday being the one to keep a level head, because someone had to, and he thought he'd done a good job, but now, now it was all tumbling away from him and he suddenly didn't know if he could keep it up.

He knew how this type of thing worked, that underneath the easily drawn up façade of anger also Knuckles would be scared and rattled, maybe moreso today, now that he had a clear head and had had some time to process, and it was much easier to have pointless arguments about stupid things than to come out and admit it.

And for a moment it felt good to shout at him, too, to turn some of that fear and worry into anger, but after a few seconds of staring at sunlight on flowery bushes, he felt bad about it.

Apparently he wasn't the only one. "Sonic... I didn't think -"

"Yeah, that much was obvious," he grumbled towards the poor, undeserving flower bushes.

Behind him it was silent for a moment before his friend tried starting over. "Look, I didn't mean that..."

"Oh, didn't you? Because I sure find that it sounded quite a lot like you." He didn't turn around to look at him.

Knuckles sighed. "Sorry. Really, I... I shouldn't have said any of that." There was a moment of leaden silence until the echidna floundered on to fill it. "I don't even know why I said that... I'm sounding damn ungrateful. You're right, you saved my life, you looked out for me, you made sure we'd all be safe here last night, and the first thing I do is get mad at you for what was probably a reasonable decision you made in my best interest when I obviously wasn't in any shape to make it myself."

That sounded more like it...

Sonic turned back around to find Knuckles looking all downtrodden, and suddenly the hedgehog found he couldn't stand that look staying on his face any second longer. "Not quite. The first thing you did was call me "it" and inform me that I'm alive. Which was awfully helpful, I needed to know that, I would never notice that sort of thing myself."

The guilt and worry that had been obvious on Knuckles' face that moment after Sonic turned back around hesitantly gave way to disbelieving relief. "I'll... keep that in mind?"

The hedgehog smiled at him. "You can go and forget it if you like. It's not important. Just remember -"

"I got it," Knuckles interrupted him. "Really, sorry. And thank you, again."

"Third time's the charm... I guess? I'm not 100% sure. Might be fourth." He shrugged. It didn't matter, and now Knuckles was looking confused. "It's alright, really. I get it. Yesterday sucked. You needed to let off steam and shout at and blame someone. You see, I needed to shout at someone, too, so it's okay. We're good. Just tell me we're done shouting at each other for now?"

Knuckles nodded quickly. "Done."

Sonic smiled again and looked his friend over. A little singed and bedraggled, a little worse for wear, but alive and close to his usual self, if he was back to yapping. "Feeling better?"

The red echidna finally smiled back. "Yes." It came out almost like a sigh, and that single word sounded too full of meaning to apply to just the mood of the situation.

Sonic moved to sit down next to him. "Well, that's good, because I'm tired of worrying about you right now."

Knuckles fidgeted. "Sorry."

"You don't need to apologize for getting blown up by a volcano." The blue hedgehog cast a look over the echidna's posture and figured he'd definitely earned the right to ask. "How's your back?"

"Sore, but much better than yesterday." Sonic thought that was probably as much honesty as he could expect to get, but Knuckles surprised him when he went on, although the violet eyes no longer looked at Sonic, but out over the pond instead. "I slept long and it healed well."

"Your Emerald helping with it?" Sonic half didn't expect to get a reply to that, but maybe Knuckles still felt bad for arguing with him earlier.

"Yes. It always does. Never so much to risk anything not healing as it's supposed to, but it's always there." The purple gaze suddenly returned to Sonic. "But the energy can only help push along what would mend on its own at a slower pace. An unset broken bone would heal in the wrong shape, and it would seal new skin right over ash and dirt in an open burn, if you're unlucky trapping infection there, too."

Sonic stared. He didn't think of himself as squeamish, but Knuckles had a matter of fact way about it that didn't go together well with the still quite fresh and graphic memory of tending this injury last night.

Apparently the guardian had realised the effect he was having on Sonic, because he grimaced. "I'm sorry."

The hedgehog swallowed. "It's fine. It wasn't a fun experience for any of us."

Knuckles nodded, the grimace still there on his face, a tad more on the painful side now with the memory. "Yeah." He stole another look out over that distractingly serene pond. "I just wanted you to know you did well. You did what you had to do. It's only better because of that."

"You're welcome." Sonic tried a smile when the echidna looked back at him, but he had the suspicion it didn't quite come out right. "I would say anytime again, but... You know, _please_ try not to get fried again, okay?"

He received an almost formal, Guardian of the Master Emerald level of importance nod in return. "You have my word."

Knuckles' word was better than a promise. If if were an issue he could actually influence, it would be something to count on. But nobody could influence bad luck and random forces of nature, so they'd just have to keep their fingers crossed here.

Sonic was saved from contemplating that by Tails' sudden return. The way Knuckles didn't startle like Sonic did when the fox burst out of the forest suggested he'd probably been aware he was coming much earlier and had just not said anything to warn Sonic. Figured. The hedgehog glared at him, but it achieved nothing, because Knuckles was looking at Tails.

The little fox seemed much more relaxed than last night as well. He was grinning at Knuckles. "Wow, you really did stay put."

"I promised," the echidna noticed.

Before Sonic could really think about what might have made Tails ask for a promise of Knuckles', considering how much they knew those were worth and how overkill it was to ask one for something like 'staying put', his little brother was turning to him. "Good morning, Sonic!" He smiled. "Did you sleep well? You sure look a lot better than this morning when you woke me. You were looking like a zombie." Now that wasn't tact, either. Where had he gone wrong in raising him? But Tails was apparently all too happy to continue, and it was with caring complaint now. "Why didn't you wake me any earlier? Nobody asked you to stay up until almost dawn."

Sonic shrugged. "You were tired, and I was feeling too wired to sleep."

Tails frowned at him, unfooled by that, because 'too wired to sleep' was something that happened to him, not Sonic, who'd normally sleep anywhere, anytime, but then he apparently decided to let him off easy. "Okay. It's a good thing you have no trouble sleeping when it's bright and sunny like this."

Sonic grinned. "Knuckles called me a 'lazy hedgehog' for 'sleeping during the daylight hours'."

Tails crossed his arms, leveling a look of mock outrage at the echidna. "The _audacity_!"

"Exactly!" Finally someone on his side! Sonic laughed.

The double tails wagging with humour, Tails leaned over to him, tone all conspiratory now. "You want me to tell you a secret? _Knuckles_ slept until about an hour ago."

"Is that so?" Sonic turned to Knuckles. "Now that's interesting, isn't it, Mr It's Lazy To Be Sleeping During The Daylight Hours? I think you're the lazy one here."

Knuckles just shrugged lightly in what maybe went by way of apology not just for the lazy hedgehog comment. "Heh."

"So, how about we don't waste what remains of these precious daylight hours then and take a look around?" He offered his hand to Knuckles and didn't comment on the fact that thank Chaos his friend stood unwavering beside him again on his own two feet.

"Let's go."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7**_

It was just a brief hike downhill to find the biplane, but it left Knuckles achy and short of breath and overall grateful for the chance to get a look at things without having to run or walk all the way. But it wasn't even important if he felt tired and sore, when there were so many other things to consider. He would have time to rest and heal later. The echidna sat at the edge of his seat as the Tornado climbed up from its starting run on a field of grass and barely skimmed over the treetops of the forests. Part of this pose was down to the fact he wasn't yet fond of leaning against his still sore and tender back, the rest of it was plain anxiety.

He had no idea how much damage there was. His own memories were vague and fuzzy and with more gaps than coherent recall of the events, let alone the actual impact of these events on the environment. The Floating Island was a fragile system in many ways. How far down had the fires spread? The pine forests up high were capable of recovering from a fire within a few years. The jungles downhill were not. The giant jungle trees took centuries to grow this tall and strong, and the island wasn't particularly large as ecosystems went. A lot of the plants were unique to even just one zone, and if a fire or something else were to kill all of one type, it was lost and couldn't be recovered again. Like him, a lot of Angel Island's inhabitants were the last of their kinds.

Below them, the treetops were falling away as Tails climbed higher into the sunlit sky. The close-up gave way to a broader field of view. Ghostly shapes of mist clung to the island's slopes, crawling between the trees and into the rocky nooks and crevices. From all the way up the hill, Ice Caps glaciers sparkled blindingly white in the sunlight.

Finally, with a gentle curve that followed the island's shape, the site of the eruption appeared below the wings. Knuckles leaned over the side of the plane to get the best view.

It seemed devastating on first look.

What had been a colourful field of alpine flowers in full bloom was covered in a thick coat of dust. The formerly bright green, healthy patches of pine forest stood in pitch black tatters, bent under heat or the force of the initial blast. Some had been outright uprooted and thrown a long way downhill.

Heavy shapes of mist, reminders of the night's rain, clutched to the scorched trees, wreathing a coat of unreality around them.

"You were right, all the fires are out, and the crater almost stopped smoking, too." Tails' words, though obviously he'd spoken to Sonic up on the wings, still roused Knuckles out of the shocked trance.

Tails was right, it could potentially be a lot worse, all in all the fire had remained rather local instead of devastating larger areas of the entire island, but the echidna couldn't keep the cynical tone from his voice. "Yeah, right."

The short look Tails threw back at him over his shoulder in between controlling the plane was stricken and apologizing, and from the wings, facing back to them as he often did, Sonic's expression was one of sympathy and something else Knuckles couldn't really place. Something stubborn. Something _Sonic_. "Don't they say volcanic ash is really good for plants? Fertile ground?"

Unconsciously Knuckles' eyes wandered past the burned field, along the shape of the island to where some of his best vineyards sat in one of those black fields of volcanic dusts. "Yeah," he trailed.

"So probably the forest will grow back quickly." At another time, Knuckles would have wondered how Sonic had so spot on guessed his train of thought. Then again, the distraught look at the sight below was probably hard to miss on his face. Was it a far leap to guess what he was thinking about?

"I don't know," he mumbled. "A few years. The forest Eggman torched is recovering relatively well."

"I heard that sometimes a fire is good for a forest. Allows fresh little trees to grow." When Knuckles raised a brow at him, Sonic was shrugging. "What? I get around. I see things. People tell me things. Sometimes I even remember them, too."

Knuckles snorted. Impossible, that hedgehog. But did he have a point? He threw another distressed look down at the black slope.

"Is it common?", Tails suddenly asked. "I mean, eruptions?"

"I don't think so." The guardian studied the small crater, then followed the curve of the mountain uphill to where Lava Reef's large crater sat between the highest peaks of the island. "It has never happened in my lifetime. The lava flows and ash fields you can find in different areas of the island outside of Lava Reef are usually at least in parts overgrown. Several hundreds of years old at least." He turned back to his friends. "Chronicles from when the island was young mention more volcanic activity, but I think it's dormant most of the time." He went back to studying the young, new crater. "I don't know what brought this on."

"Tails suggested a pressure build-up," Sonic noticed.

The fox nodded. "It's possible for hot gases and the like to get stuck in the rocks somewhere and the pressure just builds and builds until it breaks free and explodes. Maybe that's what it was."

Knuckles just hummed in response and went back to looking down. Tails flew a couple of rounds across the eruption area and they observed it in silence.

Then Sonic apparently couldn't stand it anymore. He gestured vaguely down at the slope. "I'm afraid we'll have to pick out a new track for our Gear racing."

Knuckles stared. He'd forgotten all about that, but something about the change of topic was too compelling to resist. "I'm afraid I have no idea where my board even ended up," he noticed.

"Oh, we found that one," Sonic said, and there was a weird, shaky undertone to it. "I don't think it can saved, though. It's kinda molten into the ground."

Knuckles was kept from asking about what the heck _that_ was supposed to mean by Tails' protest of "Sonic!"

Sonic's tone had been weird. Tails sounded – he didn't even have a fitting word for it, but it was something he was sure he never wanted to hear in his young friend's voice.

Apparently also Sonic had figured he'd said something he shouldn't have, for whatever reason. Knuckles felt like he missed a whole lot of context here, but it didn't seem the time to ask.

On the wings, Sonic had crouched down right in front of the windshield, the propeller downwash ripping at his quills, but Sonic didn't seem to mind, he was only looking at Tails. "Autopilot, buddy." It wasn't even a question. It wasn't directly a command either, but something close enough, and Tails just complied with it.

Sonic was still crouched low. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I didn't think."

"S'okay," Tails mumbled. "I'm being ridiculous. He's gonna be fine."

"You're not being ridiculous." Sonic firmly shook his head. "It's quite alright."

Tails was silent for a few seconds. "I don't even know – It's over, Sonic. Done. We're okay… But… but, I was so _scared_ when we found it! When I first saw the red, I thought it was Knuckles for a second, then I realized it was not, but it was so broken, bent and molten and just – I thought-" He sniffed.

"Yeah, I know. I know. Me too." A detached part of Knuckles that was stuck just watching noticed there was a thoughtful and caring side of Sonic that was reserved for Tails. "It's okay to be rattled, little bro."

"You just do a much better job about _stopping_ being rattled," the fox mumbled.

Sonic smiled softly. "No. We're better at hiding it."

Knuckles wondered if he should have an opinion on being included so readily in the statement, but he didn't. Not while Tails was so obviously distressed. "I'm sorry, Tails." He didn't even know what he was apologizing for to the little guy.

Apparently Sonic knew that, because he looked away from Tails long enough to shoot a quite exasperated glare at Knuckles. "Will you stop apologizing for being blown up, please? It's ridiculous. Did you go, hey, volcano, please blow me up?"

"Of course not!" _That_ was ridiculous. As was Sonic's casual wording to frame the events.

But maybe the hedgehog knew exactly what he was doing anyway, because Tails' ears were picking back up. It was the only sign of emotion Knuckles could easily see given the seating arrangement. "Leave him alone, Sonic," the fox said, and he sounded more like himself again.

"Why? Someone clearly needs to set his head straight." Sonic was grinning now. "I mean, I get the whole Guardian Master of this Magical Island thing, but I think the lines need to be drawn at making volcanoes erupt." He paused, green eyes suddenly piercing as he studied Knuckles. "_Can_ you make volcanoes erupt here?"

"No. Don't be silly."

Sonic shrugged and stood back upright on his spot atop the wings. "Well, you can do the whole making the island float thing, it seemed a fair question."

"Even if he could, why would he ever do that?" Tails finally seemed relatively relaxed again, and he was back to asking questions and thinking sensibly. His fingers flicked a few switches again, then he pulled at the stick and the Tornado leaned into a gentle curve back towards the island after having moved away from it while on autopilot.

"What do I know? Think of how effective a death trap that would make for Emerald thieves. Screw jigged bridges dropping you into pits, now it's eruptions blowing the intruders away!" Sonic seemed to have found an unreasonable amount of sudden vigor and motivation for this idea.

Tails was laughing. "Stop, you'll just give him ideas! He'll go and try that!"

"I can hear you," Knuckles grumbled.

In front of him, Tails turned over his shoulder, a genuine smile on his face. "I'm glad you're okay."

Knuckles smiled back. "Yeah, me too. Thank you, Tails."

"Hey, what about me?", Sonic complained.

"You apparently just give me dumb ideas and I shouldn't socialize with you." He was rewarded with both of his friends' laughter.

Slowly, the Tornado circled the island. Tails threw a look down at the black scar on its side. "I'm still glad it's over," he said.

"I guess that goes for all of us," Knuckles allowed.

Atop the wings, Sonic seemed to have taken on the job to kill any low mood as soon as he saw it. "Probably, but what important and amazing life lessons do we learn from this experience?" He was grinning, obviously jesting. "Apparently you can learn something from _everything_ that happens. So?"

From his position behind him, Knuckles could watch Tails' head tip aside, apparently actually giving it some thought, or at least intending to pretend to. "I dunno," the little fox trailed. "That volcanoes are dangerous?"

Sonic grinned. "Come on, you'll have to do better than that."

"_You_ do better than that," Tails challenged, sending Sonic into a fumbling of "umm"s" and trying to change the topic, even though it had been him to bring it up in the first place.

Tails was laughing through Sonic's excuses, but Knuckles turned back down to the scorched valley. Their antics were familiar and didn't need his attention.

That aside, they were wrong. For his part, he'd learned several things he wouldn't forget anytime soon. Yes, he'd been hurt bad. They'd all been terrified. This slope down there would be a barren stretch of dust and charred trees for years to come.

But he'd indeed learned several things that really called for further consideration.

He tended to think of Angel Island as this sanctuary, this utterly safe place.

It had almost killed him yesterday.

It would be untrue to say he wasn't aware that a lot of things on the island were dangerous. As a natural glider, the countless drops down cliffs and into ravines didn't pose much of a threat, but it was true that theoretically, he could drown in Hydrocity or get caught up in an avalanche at Ice Cap. The storms that hit the island occasionally were dangerous, you could get struck by lightning, or the winds could drop a falling tree on your head, or the rains could cause a landslide. Then of course there was Lava Reef, where the lava flowed in lakes and rivers and what looked like walkable ground would just drop away under your weight towards the liquid fire below.

But all of those were known dangers, something he could predict, something manageable. He'd learned his way around. He'd lived on the island his entire life, he knew which paths were save in Hydrocity, he knew where to set foot in Lava Reef and what to look out for, he knew how to tell a storm was going to hit long before it did. If you knew what to look for, you could see a lot of the potentially dangerous things coming.

It was probably true what he'd said to his friends. Something like this didn't happen for hundreds of years. The youngest discernable eruption areas outside Lava Reef were overgrown with vegetation hundreds of years old. This was the first event in a very long time. Could he expect it to be the last in his lifetime? There was no way to tell if or when something like this would happen again, and there wasn't anything he could do about it, either.

Knuckles tore his eyes away from studying the black slope.

He'd learned something else, too, something he should have probably known in theory, but seeing it for real was something else entirely.

Knuckles' gaze flicked back up to Sonic and Tails, still obliviously jesting with one another.

Those two, all jokes and grins now again, had gone through the fire down there not to stop Eggman or to retrieve Chaos Emeralds, no, just to find him.

.

_Fin_


End file.
